Signal Fire
by Darklighter2016
Summary: "In the confusion, and the aftermath, you are my signal fire..." I never thought that it would be possible to care for someone as much as I care for her. But then again, even after I did begin to care about her, I never thought that our relationship would take a turn for the direction that it did either. Eventual Alex/Mitchie relationship. AU.
1. Chapter 1

**AN 1: Hey everybody...I'm back. It's been a while since I've been on here. Hopefully I haven't become too rusty in my prolonged absence. But if I have...well, I'm sorry about that, and hope that you'll take it easy on me. I've had this story idea floating around in my head for a very long time now, and have only just now had the time and motivation to start writing it. The last school semester was pretty rough, but now that it's summer, I'm ready to start writing again. I gotta say though, I will probably not be having extremely quick uploads, unlike in my previous Malex stories. I really want to take my time with this one, because this story means a lot to me, even after just starting it. Be patient with me, please. **

**To all of those who have read my Criminal Minds story, "Long Distance Call", I will hopefully be posting another chapter of that soon as well. If that's why you've subscribed to me...sorry, this isn't the story you were looking for, but I promise to bring you more Jemily goodness soon! **

**The title of this story was inspired by Snow Patrol's "Signal Fire". I would encourage people to check it out; however, I must say that the story itself was not fully inspired by this song. The song that needs to take a lot of the credit in the inspiration department is George Watsky's "Sloppy Seconds". If you don't check out "Signal Fire", you should try to check out "Sloppy Seconds". That being said, this is not a songfic. Mitchie Torres, Alex Russo, and any other characters that are mentioned or used from the Camp Rock/WOWP universes are the property of Disney. Anyways, onto the story!**

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Chapter 1: The Day I First Met Her

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I met the love of my life when I was sixteen years old. That sounds incredibly sappy, doesn't it? I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with me, saying things along the lines of, "You're a kid. What the hell does a kid like you know about love?" But it's the truth; I met the love of my life when I was sixteen years old. I just didn't know it at the time.

Meeting her wasn't something that was a momentous occasion. Even to this day, I highly doubt that I could even tell you what day I met her, like some people say they could when you ask them about their significant others. That day, in my sixteen-year-old mind, was just like any other. Hindsight, as they say, is twenty-twenty. However, I could tell you that the first time we met was over the summer, during the time that summer was winding down, and everyone our age was getting ready to go back to school.

Our meeting was one of what one of my college professors would call sheer happenstance. The hopeless romantics I know would have called it fate, or destiny. I'm not sure what I would call it, but whether it was simply coincidence, or it really was destined to happen, I could tell you that I honestly don't care either way. It happened, and I'm eternally grateful that it did. That's all.

We met at the all-girls resident camp that I had come to consider my second home, which, incidentally was the one that she only attended because her parents – namely, her mother – forced her to attend each summer. At the age of sixteen, I had already been attending this camp for five years, and was currently going through the training the camp provides older campers in order to eventually become counselors. I was in my second summer of training, and as a part of this training I was required to observe cabins to gain a sense of how the counselors interacted with their campers. As fate, or luck, would have it, my first assignment that week was to observe her cabin.

It was right after lunch that the rest of my group and I were given our cabin assignments. My best friend Caitlyn and I trudged down to the basement of the main lodge, which was were the counselor-in-training camper room was located, after filling our water bottles in the lodge's dining room. Right as we entered the room, our counselor, Veronica, called out my name.

"Mitchie," she called, giving me a slightly severe look for walking into the room late, which caused me to internally roll my eyes. I wasn't technically late; Caitlyn and I had arrived a few minutes before the designated time we were supposed to meet at. "You'll be observing Olivia's group today. They are the art session, so you'll find them at Creation Station."

I gave Veronica a subtle salute behind her back, causing Caitlyn to smirk at me, and slung the backpack with all of my notes and other materials over my shoulder before clipping one of the walkie talkies that each counselor-in-training was provided for the week onto my backpack strap and heading out the door. It's not that I really had something against Veronica herself; just that I had some personal issues with anyone who tried to run things like a military drill instructor. I already had one of those at home, and neither wanted nor needed another hardass adult in my life, whether they were a poser or the genuine article. Taking a sip out of my Nalgene water bottle, I quickly walked up the sloping hill towards the arts and crafts cabin. Everything in this camp was spaced out fairly evenly from each other, but in the heat and humidity of New York summers, a short walk could seem to take much longer than one would otherwise expect. Before I had made it to the air conditioned cabin, my shirt clung to my back with sweat, and my exposed skin felt sticky. I quickened my pace and slipped inside the cool interior of the cabin quietly, trying not to disturb the campers I had been sent to observe.

My intentions were quickly thwarted once I stepped inside the building, due to an unexpected can of paint that I tripped over after taking a few steps inside the room. I struggled to regain my balance and grabbed the back of a chair to keep myself from falling, resulting in more noise as the chair screeched across the linoleum floor. Five heads turned in my direction as I finally regained my balance and readjusted my backpack. "Sorry about that," I said quietly, internally cursing my clumsiness.

Olivia waved me over to an empty chair at the table they occupied. She was a girl of average height, with short, dark hair and piercing green eyes. A purple streak ran through her bangs. "Don't worry about it," she said easily as I sat down. "We're making things out of clay right now. Join us."

I looked at the girls at the table before I noticed who Olivia's co-counselor was. "Hey, Devon," I said, grinning and pulling my chair over so I could sit closer to the other girl. Devon had just finished the counselor-in-training program the year before, which was when she and I had bonded over playing soccer and playing guitar. Then I realized that there were only three campers at the table with us. "Are these all of your campers?" I asked, somewhat surprised. I had known that camp was not near full-capacity this week, but for only three girls to be in a cabin seemed very surprising to me.

Devon gave me a wry smile and continued to roll a piece of clay in between her palms. "Yeah," she shrugged casually. "I was surprised too, but I'm not complaining. It makes things so much easier. You know, there are only three names to remember, and they're all older, so it's easier to keep track of them that way as well." Olivia nodded in agreement from the other side of me.

One of the girls scoffed lightly, but the smile on her face told me that she wasn't truly offended by what her two counselors were saying. "Glad to make things easy for you," she said, also rolling a ball of clay in her hands. "Because after all, we wouldn't want to make things difficult, now would we?"

I smiled at her words slightly and adjusted the bandana I had wrapped around my wrist. "What are your names?" I asked, directing my question to the girl who spoke first.

"My name is Ashley," she said, her pale green eyes meeting my brown ones confidently. She gestured to the girl sitting on her right. "This is Amanda," she said as the girl with frizzy honey-brown hair and glasses glanced my way. I gave the girl a quick smile before focusing on the one sitting directly across from me with long, dark brown hair. "That's Alex," Ashley finished, using a toothpick to shape the clay ball in her hands into what vaguely resembled a snout.

"Nice to meet you," I said, leaning back in my chair and taking another sip of water. Devon was right; it did seem a lot easier to keep track of three girls versus the usual eight to ten. Alex glanced up towards my direction as I did so and gave me a smile. I tilted my chair so that the front two legs hovered slightly off of the ground and readjusted my makeshift armband once more. "How old are you guys?"

"They don't really tell you much, do they?" Ashley asked, now using her toothpick to put detail into her clay project. I already decided that I liked this girl. She was assertive without being overly in your face, and had just the right amount of snark in her words and actions that I knew we would be able to get along without a problem.

Alex spoke up, her hands busy with what appeared to be a clay tentacle. "Sorry about Ashley. She's just really snarky. Like she said, my name is Alex. I'm fourteen years old, and I'm about to start my freshman year at Waverly High School in New York City."

"Hey, I know that school," I said, allowing my chair to fall back down on all four legs. "I go to Booker T. Washington. You guys killed us in our last soccer game. It was actually pretty embarrassing, because we were expecting an easy win."

Alex gave me a smirk and started rolling another piece of clay, only this one shaped like a ball. "Maybe you shouldn't just expect an easy win then." She looked at the clay in her hands and decided that the ball wasn't up to par yet, and continued to roll it between her palms. "Our soccer team is actually pretty good; it's our football team that's absolute crap."

I laughed and flicked an errant piece of clay back towards her direction. "I'll keep that in mind. But I can sympathize with you on the football thing – our team is completely awful. Not that it really affects me one way or the other. I can't stand football. Soccer is more my thing. And while we're on the subject, who was the idiot who came up with the idea to call American football "football"? You don't use your feet in it nearly as much as soccer, which would make a lot more sense to call football."

While I had been speaking, Alex had finished her clay creation. "That would make sense," she said, setting the clay creature down on the table in front of me. "But humans are notorious for doing things that don't make sense. Right?"

I stared at the thing in front of me. "What exactly is that?"

"A quadropus," she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"A…quadropus."

"Yeah," she said, as Ashley picked it up and began to examine the little clay creation. "Like an octopus, but with only four arms."

"You wouldn't call that a severely challenged octopus?"

"Not at all."

I stared at the little clay quadropus, and decided that the small, purple creature was one of the cutest, and strangest, creations that I had ever seen. "You should give him a top hat," I finally said, smiling at the younger girl in front of me. "Everything looks better with a top hat."

Devon rolled a container of black clay towards me. "Then maybe you should make one." She winked at me to show me that she was messing with me, and went back to crafting what appeared to be beads in the shape of cats with various accessories. One had a small, but very realistic, monocle and what appeared to be a bowler hat, while another had a large orange bowtie.

I laughed, but rolled the container into the center of the table. "Sorry to disappoint you, but my skill when it comes to clay is non-existent. You'd be lucky if you got a nice blob from me. I can draw fairly well, and I can play guitar, but that's about it as far as my creativity goes."

Alex picked up the clay and pinched off a decent sized chunk of clay and began to roll it into another ball. "You can play guitar?" she asked, looking at me with eyes that were similar in coloration to my own.

"Yeah. My cousin in Minnesota taught me when I was twelve and visited there for the summer," I replied, watching her work.

"That's really cool," she said, turning her eyes back to the clay in front of her. "And you can draw too? You're lucky. I have a hard time drawing a straight line, or a circle."

I glanced at my watch quickly, surprised that so much time had passed already. A conversation that had only felt like minutes had quickly turned into a conversation that had lasted for over an hour. "Lines and circles are hard," I replied, pulling out a small spiral notebook from my backpack and jotting down a few notes to myself so I could write my observation report later.

"I'm sure you don't think so," she replied, placing the now complete top hat on the quadropus, whom I had secretly decided to call Howard.

"No, I think so. And I think it's even worse for me because I expect myself to draw really good lines and circles."

Alex smiled again and brushed some stray strands of hair out of her eyes. As I took a long drink from my water bottle, the walkie talkie that I had clipped onto the strap of my backpack crackled to life. "Attention all counselors-in-training," Veronica's voice stated from the small device. "Your presence is required back in your cabin."

I sighed and stood up, readjusting the bandana around my wrist once more and shoving my water bottle back into my backpack. "Guess I'll see you guys around," I said, shoving my hands into the pockets of my cargo shorts and heading back towards the door I had originally entered.

Looking back on that encounter, I don't know how I couldn't have realized sooner that I felt something for her, even after just meeting her. It seems completely ridiculous to me now that I could have ever thought that she was no more than a passing acquaintance. But then again, I never thought that it was possible for one person to mean so much to me, let alone her specifically. And as I was walking away from that first encounter with Alex Russo, I never once thought that our relationship would have evolved the way that it did. I certainly wasn't expecting to have to deal with all of the shit that I ended up putting up with. I had no idea. The only thing that I have a concrete idea of, even to this very day, is that I am – without a shadow of a doubt – a complete and total idiot.

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**AN 2: There you have it. The start of a new story for Alex and Mitchie. I hope you guys liked it. Leave a review with me if you'd like, but no flames please and thank you. I'm unsure when I'll have a huge amount of time to work on the next chapter, but make sure to subscribe if you'd like more. Thanks for reading! Darklighter out.**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN 1: Here's the second chapter of Signal Fire. I know, I know...it's been a long time since I uploaded. Life just seems to be getting busier and busier, but I promise that I haven't forgotten this story. Hopefully I can post another chapter soon, but I'm not for sure on how soon it will be yet. Thank you to anyone who has reviewed, favorited, or followed this story.**

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Chapter 2: The Start of Something New

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The first thing that I heard when I entered the dining room that night for dinner was a vaguely familiar voice calling my name. Suppressing a yawn and turning my head, I was completely surprised to see Alex waving to me from the other side of the dining room. I grinned and headed towards the table that she was seated at, noticing that both Olivia's and Devon's backpacks were there too. "Hey," Alex said, flashing me a wide smile as I set my backpack down and took the seat across from her.

"Hey," I replied, grabbing a cup from the stack next to me and filling it with water from the pitcher next to the cups. "So…mind if I'm your water pourer tonight?" I asked, setting the plastic cup in front of her and reaching for another one. The way that meal times at camp were set up was unlike anything else that I had seen elsewhere, although I was fairly certain that all camps had a similar approach. Each table was meant to be headed by one counselor or staff member, who would serve the food to the campers. The other end of the table had a pitcher and water cups on it, where a counselor-in-training or another staff member would pour water. This was meant to ensure that everyone at the table got an equal serving of food, and since everyone was expected to drink at least one glass of water at every meal, it allowed for someone to monitor the water intake of the campers as well. Counselors-in-training were given this spot in order to see how different counselors would interact with the kids at their table, as well as help out the younger kids if necessary. The counselor had two kids from their cabin help them by bringing the food when it was ready, as well as fetching more water or seconds if needed. I assumed that because Alex's cabin was so small, Devon and Olivia both stayed with their cabin unless another table needed a staff member at it.

Alex picked up her cup and took a long drink. "Yeah," she said casually after she had drained half of the glass. "I think you'll do." She smirked at me, letting me get a glimpse of the mischievous side of her that I hadn't been sure existed and causing me to smile back at her. Usually it took me a long time to warm up to new people, but Alex seemed to defy the normal approach I take when it comes to meeting new people: don't get friendly with them. At sixteen, I had already decided that people were typically a gigantic waste of my time. Most would either disappoint you or hurt you, and I was not looking to give people any reasons to be interested in me enough to do either.

"Hey, knock it off you two," Ashley said, taking a seat next to me and bumping my shoulder in a friendly manner. "You shouldn't be so cute together. People might start wondering things."

I looked at her incredulously. "'Wondering things'," I said mockingly, turning so that I could talk to both her and Alex at the same time. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Alex laughed lightly. "I think the only one here who would even talk about 'wondering things' here is Ashley." As she spoke, she trailed her finger through some water that had condensed onto the table and flicked it towards the other girl's direction.

Ashley flinched as the water landed on her face. "Yeah, whatever," she said, laughing and wiping her face on my shoulder, causing me to wince internally at the contact. I also had a thing against people I didn't really know touching me, for various reasons, but I forced myself to stay quiet and appear unbothered by her actions. Saying anything would just cause questions that I'd rather not answer to be asked. "But when you guys grow up and are getting married, I'm gonna be there to tell you I told you so."

"Oh, go sit where you're supposed to," Alex said, laughing at her ridiculous statement and motioning for her to go sit on the other end of the table, across from Devon, who had finally taken her seat. Ashley gave both of us a final "I know what's best" look before getting up and moving to the other end of the table. "Sorry about that," Alex said after she had moved, brushing her bangs out of her face and taking another sip of water as she did so. "She's a little weird."

"It's okay," I replied, grabbing her cup and refilling it as I did so. As I was filling the cup, my hand slipped, causing me to spill water all over the lower half of my shorts. "Sh – crap," I muttered, embarrassed of what had happened but mindful enough of camp rules to not curse in front of a camper. Even if the camper was one of the older ones, we were still supposed to be mindful of what we said, and even saying a fairly insignificant cuss word like "shit" wouldn't have been appropriate. I had been told this rule several times already in my time as a counselor-in-training, since usually I didn't really stop to think of who I was around when I dropped cuss words into a conversation.

Alex started to giggle as I reached for the napkin dispenser. "I think I take back what I said about you being a good water pourer," she said, handing me her napkin as well. "Are you always so clumsy? I know you tripped over a paint can earlier today too."

I sighed and gathered all of the wet napkins together into one ball. "You have no idea," I said, looking down at my wet shorts. "Unfortunately I was born a klutz and never grew out of it." She took the napkins from my hand and started to stand up. "Hey," I said, reaching out for the napkins again and ignoring the shock of how the feeling of her hand on mine didn't make me want to flinch at all, despite me hardly knowing this girl. "I can throw those away myself."

She shook her head and pulled the ball of wet napkins out of my reach. "I got it. I need to go up to the front and refill the water pitcher anyways," she said, also grabbing the aforementioned pitcher. "And besides, you might want to let that water mark dry a little bit before you get up." Her eyes flicked towards my shorts, and the smile playing around her mouth told me that despite what she had said, she was really just amused with me. Before I could come up with a suitable retort, Alex had already walked away, her long legs carrying her towards the kitchen quickly.

After Alex returned to the table, it was time for the campers who hadn't been helping get ready for dinner to join us. Soon, the rest of our table was filled with girls of various ages. The youngest girl was seven. I did not envy Ashley and Alex. They not only had to help set up the table, but also clean it after the meal was done, and for whatever reason, almost all of the younger campers here seemed to think that filling a bowl with shredded cheese and ranch from the salad bar was a gourmet meal. Personally, I found the whole thing gross – not only did it just sound unappetizing, but it also looked somewhat disgusting when you saw it too. I was always really thankful that I didn't have to clean up in times like this.

I managed to distribute the rest of the water without making a fool of myself again, causing Alex to flash me a quick thumbs up, to which I promptly stuck out my tongue. She laughed and simply took another sip of her water. "So," she said casually, setting the cup down and picking her fork up again. "You go to Booker T., and you play guitar, and you like the soccer team. What else do I need to know about you?"

I glanced down at my lap, and tugged at the bandana encircling my wrist once again. "I don't just like the soccer team at Booker T.," I said, meeting her eyes and smiling slightly. "I'm on the team. I'm typically a forward player, but I also goalkeep if our usual keeper can't make it. My dad made sure that I could play all of the positions growing up, too."

She looked impressed. "That's awesome," she said, taking a bite of the mashed potatoes on her plate. "I don't really go to the soccer games, but now that I know you're on the Booker T. team, I'll at least show up for that game. It'd be nice to see a friendly face."

I laughed. "You mean before or after our teams play? Because I think the amount of friendliness depends on how the game goes." Even as I spoke, I found myself thinking that if I actually did see her at a game, I wouldn't mind that at all. In fact, I might even enjoy it.

She lifted her shoulder up in a half-shrug, the smile never leaving her face. "I think you'd be friendly either way."

"What makes you think that?" I asked, intrigued by the answer. Not many people thought of me as a friendly person; I was known for keeping to myself as much as possible at school. That is not to say that I didn't have friends – my friends all thought of me as a sweetheart, much to my confusion – but I certainly wasn't the most popular kid at my school. It just took me a long time to be able to open up to people long enough for me to really begin to befriend them. I was guarded like that.

Alex shrugged again and pushed her bangs out of her eyes once more. "It's just a feeling," she said, looking straight into my eyes as she did so. After a couple of seconds, her eyes fell to her plate once more. "Anything else you want to tell me about yourself?"

I considered telling her a lot of things that under normal circumstances I would've just kept to myself, but instead I decided to ask her a question in return. "Nah, I'm good," I said, finishing my glass of water. "But why don't you tell me some about yourself instead? All I know about you is that you go to Waverly and you make an awesome quadropus."

A small, almost unnoticeable, guarded look flickered over her face before she responded. "I don't really do sports," she said, smiling at me again. The guarded look was gone as quickly as it came. I didn't really have much time to process what that could possibly mean though, because I was more absorbed in actually listening to what she was saying. "I have a both a younger and older brother. We're all at Waverly, which can sometimes be annoying, especially when teachers expect me to be as smart as my older brother, Justin. I'm dyslexic, so reading is sometimes a real challenge, but I love it. Oh…and I really dislike my middle name."

By this time we had finished dinner and had moved on to dessert. A sly smile had appeared on my face the moment she had mentioned her middle name. "So…what's your middle name?" I asked, casually picking up my spoon and digging into my chocolate pudding.

"Don't ask, don't tell," she said lightly, mimicking my motions.

"I thought that only applied to the military?"

"No, it applies to whatever works. Including and especially when it pertains to my middle name."

I gave a long suffering sigh. "How rude. Here I was, just wanting to get to know you better. But I suppose it's fair; I don't tell anybody my middle name either."

She rolled her eyes, then smiled mischievously. "Well, then I'll make you a deal. If you tell me your middle name, I'll tell you mine."

I laughed. "No way."

"Come on," she said, finishing her pudding as she did so. "I'll never tell anyone."

"Well," I said, our eyes locking once more. "Neither will I."

"Mitch," a familiar voice called out from behind me. I turned to see Caitlyn walking towards me, her backpack slung over her shoulder and a slightly impatient look on her features.

"Hey, man. What's up?" I said as she came up beside me.

"It's time to go out and run Singing Porch," she replied, grabbing my spoon from me as I went to take another bite of pudding. I did my best not to groan at the mention of Singing Porch. While the counselors and the campers who were picked to help them cleaned the dining room, all of the counselors-in-training and the rest of the camp population went out onto the large elevated porch area just outside the dining room and sang a variety of camp songs until the dining room was cleaned. While I generally enjoyed camp songs, Singing Porch was always a pain in the ass because all of the older campers tried to get out of it in a variety of ways and the younger kids always wandered further away from the group than they should. She scooped up the last of my dessert and popped it in her mouth as I finished my internal grumblings. "That is good stuff," she said, ignoring the fake look of anger that I sent her way and handing me my backpack instead. "Finish up your water and let's go. I don't want to have to go out there by myself."

"Yes, mother," I said mockingly, standing up and draining the rest of my cup as I did so. My shorts had thankfully dried in the time that it took for us to eat. I shouldered my backpack and readjusted the bandana around my wrist once more, tightening it enough so that it wouldn't slip around anymore.

Alex smiled at me as I did all of this, standing up so that she could start helping Devon and Ashley clean the table. "It was nice talking to you, Mitchie," she said softly, stacking my plate on top of hers as she did so.

"It was nice talking to you too," I replied, surprised to find that instead of just saying it to be polite, I had actually meant it.

The buzz of the dining room, which had faded out for me the second that Alex and I started talking, suddenly came back to me full force as Caitlyn and I headed out to the porch. "What was that about?" she asked me as we discarded our backpacks and waited for the kids to start showing up.

"What are you talking about?"

"You were actually friendly to someone instead of just sitting there semi-awkwardly like you always are," she said, setting out a crate full of old and weathered songbooks in front of where we were standing.

"Shut up," I said, punching her arm lightly as I did so. Yes, I was an awkward person usually, but I was actually a lot better at camp than I was out in the real world. Camp was my home. I was always more relaxed here. Unfortunately for me, I didn't realize just how accurate Caitlyn was with her analysis at the time. No one else had ever gotten me to start talking about simple facts about me as quickly as Alex had. The girl had started to get under my skin without me even realizing that she had done it.

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**AN 2: And there is the end of chapter 2. Please let me know what you all think. It really means a lot to me. Favorites and Follows are also excepted :). Darklighter out.**


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